‘No such a thing, Mr Michael,’ was the prompt return.  ’Clar’t and water.’

‘Well, well, Teena, I daresay you know best,’ said the master.  ’Very fatiguing day at the office, though.’

‘What?’ said the retainer, ‘ye never were near the office!’

‘O yes, I was though; I was repeatedly along Fleet Street,’ returned Michael.

‘Pretty pliskies ye’ve been at this day!’ cried the old lady, with humorous alacrity; and then, ‘Take care—­don’t break my crystal!’ she cried, as the lawyer came within an ace of knocking the glasses off the table.

‘And how is he keeping?’ asked Michael.

’O, just the same, Mr Michael, just the way he’ll be till the end, worthy man!’ was the reply.  ’But ye’ll not be the first that’s asked me that the day.’

‘No?’ said the lawyer.  ‘Who else?’

‘Ay, that’s a joke, too,’ said Teena grimly.  ’A friend of yours:  Mr Morris.’

‘Morris!  What was the little beggar wanting here?’ enquired Michael.

‘Wantin’?  To see him,’ replied the housekeeper, completing her meaning by a movement of the thumb toward the upper storey.  ’That’s by his way of it; but I’ve an idee of my own.  He tried to bribe me, Mr Michael.  Bribe—­me!’ she repeated, with inimitable scorn.  ‘That’s no’ kind of a young gentleman.’

‘Did he so?’ said Michael.  ‘I bet he didn’t offer much.’

‘No more he did,’ replied Teena; nor could any subsequent questioning elicit from her the sum with which the thrifty leather merchant had attempted to corrupt her.  ‘But I sent him about his business,’ she said gallantly.  ‘He’ll not come here again in a hurry.’

‘He mustn’t see my father, you know; mind that!’ said Michael.  ’I’m not going to have any public exhibition to a little beast like him.’

‘No fear of me lettin’ him,’ replied the trusty one.  ’But the joke is this, Mr Michael—­see, ye’re upsettin’ the sauce, that’s a clean tablecloth—­the best of the joke is that he thinks your father’s dead and you’re keepin’ it dark.’

Michael whistled.  ‘Set a thief to catch a thief,’ said he.

‘Exac’ly what I told him!’ cried the delighted dame.

‘I’ll make him dance for that,’ said Michael.

‘Couldn’t ye get the law of him some way?’ suggested Teena truculently.

‘No, I don’t think I could, and I’m quite sure I don’t want to,’ replied Michael.  ’But I say, Teena, I really don’t believe this claret’s wholesome; it’s not a sound, reliable wine.  Give us a brandy and soda, there’s a good soul.’  Teena’s face became like adamant.  ‘Well, then,’ said the lawyer fretfully, ‘I won’t eat any more dinner.’

‘Ye can please yourself about that, Mr Michael,’ said Teena, and began composedly to take away.

‘I do wish Teena wasn’t a faithful servant!’ sighed the lawyer, as he issued into Kings’s Road.

The rain had ceased; the wind still blew, but only with a pleasant freshness; the town, in the clear darkness of the night, glittered with street-lamps and shone with glancing rain-pools.  ‘Come, this is better,’ thought the lawyer to himself, and he walked on eastward, lending a pleased ear to the wheels and the million footfalls of the city.